1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card connector mounted on electronic devices, such as cellular phones, telephones, PDA (personal digital assistance), portable audio devices and digital cameras, and more specifically to a structure for ejecting a card.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electronic devices such as cellular phones, telephones, PDA and digital cameras, a variety of functions are added and the user is identified by inserting an IC card with a built-in IC, including memory or controlled circuit, such as a SIM (subscriber identity module) card, an MMC (multimedia card; trademark) and a Smart Media (trademark) card.
In a connector structure for removably accommodating such an IC card, a plurality of contact terminals, which are connected with various signal processing circuits and a power supply circuit in the electronic device mounting the connector, are provided in a connector housing to make contact with a plurality of contact pads formed on the front or back surface of the inserted IC card to electrically connect the IC card to the electronic device having that connector through the contact between the contact terminal and the contact pad.
Many of such card connectors have an ejection mechanism for ejecting an inserted card from the connector.
A conventional ejection mechanism of this nature has an ejection button member, a slide member slidable relative to the connector body and a cam lever interposed between the ejection button member and the slide member. Upon pressing operation of the ejection button member, the movement of the ejection button member is converted through the cam lever into a motion of the slide member in the ejection direction. That is, the slide member linked to the cam lever is slid in the ejection direction, thereby ejecting the card supported on the slide member out of the connector.
As described above, in the conventional ejection mechanism the operation of the ejection button results in an immediate initiation of the ejection operation of the card, so that when the user erroneously operates the ejection button while the card is being read or written, errors may result giving rise to a possibility of loss of data being written or read.
In the present invention which has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, an object thereof is to provide a card connector that can reliably avoid errors even when the ejection button is pressed inadvertently.
In one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a card connector which is capable of removably supporting a card and, in response to a pressing operation of an ejection button, ejecting the card inserted in the connector, the card connector comprising: an eject operation detection switch configured to turn on immediately after the eject bottom has begun to be pressed; and an eject operation mechanism configured to, in response to the pressing operation of the ejection button, start the operation of ejecting the card after the eject operation detection switch has turned on.
With this invention, when the ejection button is pressed, the eject operation detection switch turns on before the ejection mechanism starts ejecting the card. Hence, on the electronic device side where the connector is mounted, it is possible to perform a predetermined error avoiding handling according to a detection signal from the eject operation detection switch before the electrical contacts of the card and the connector noncontact. Hence, even when the ejection button is erroneously operated, a card error can be forestalled, thus precluding the possibility of loss of data being written into or read from the card.
In other embodiment of this invention, an automatic reset mechanism is further included which automatically resets the ejection button when not loaded.
Because the ejection button is reset to the initial position when not loaded, the ON/OFF switching of the eject operation detection switch does not occur unless the button is pressed with a load, thus preventing an inadvertent operation of the switch.
The above and other objects, effects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.